


Start of Something New

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 04:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6037915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who is that weird new kid obsessed with Chris? Oh, yeah. That's Darren. </p><p>(Thanks to my ~anon for the prompt, hope I did it justice!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start of Something New

There's a new kid in school. 

Two of them, actually. The older one seems cool, the kind of guy that makes friends wherever he goes. 

The younger one is... weird. He's short and loud and always singing. He walks around with his backpack half unzipped and somehow nothing ever falls out. He eats lunch while bopping his head to something playing in the oversized headphones he always has around his neck. He's in band and he brings a different instrument with him every day of the week, lugging them around because they won't fit in his locker.

Chris knows these things, because Chris is observant... and because they're in drama class together, last period of the day. Chris signed up because he needed another extracurricular and he used to like doing theater back when he was a kid. 

(Public school drama class is nothing like theater used to be, it turns out. His teacher puts movies on three days out of the week and once in awhile they read some lines out of a book and gives them an A for just breathing and speaking when they’re supposed to.)

Darren apparently signed up expecting something different because he keeps showing up with different plays and scenes printed out and asking if they can perform them. 

The teacher politely takes the scripts and uses them as a makeshift coaster for the mug of coffee on her desk. 

* 

Chris stands at the front of the lunch room. 

Every table has at least someone at it. Almost every seat is filled, save for a few pockets of empty seats. He'll have to pick one. It's just a matter of which option is least offensive to his intelligence, his sense of smell, or his sanity. 

He sits outside most of the time. Outside is nice and peaceful, when nature cooperates. But right now outside is a drizzly, wet mess, so he's inside... along with the entire rest of the school's lunch-eating population. 

He might be a pariah but he isn't entirely friendless. It's just that his best friend is an office aide and his other friends... well, they're around. Just. On the wrong side of the lunch line. 

He smiles weakly at Lunch Lady Doris as she passes by him on her way back to the kitchen. 

"Nasty weather," she says, then slides him something wrapped in a napkin. "Here's an extra cookie." 

So, at least there's that. 

He scans the room again, eyes landing on one table with an empty stretch of five seats on one side. There's only one person there, sat at the very end of it. 

Darren. The new kid. (Even if he's been at the school for a month already, the lack of anyone newer means he's still new.) 

*

"Mind if I sit here?" Chris asks. 

Darren doesn't look up from his phone. He's shimmying his shoulders a little to whatever he's listening to. 

Chris sighs and sits down anyway. It's only the motion of his tray hitting the table that gets Darren's attention. 

"Oh, hey!" Darren gives him a big smile. "You want to sit down?" 

Chris is actually already sitting but he still says, "Sure," in an awkward voice. 

"Glad for the company." Darren shoves three fries into his mouth and chews as he says, "People here are kind of dicks, you know?" 

Greeting aside, it's the first thing he's ever said to Chris. 

As far as opening gambits go, it's not that bad. "Yeah," Chris agrees. 

Darren pushes his headphones back so they drop to hang around his neck. "My last school wasn't anything like this." 

Of course Darren's going to want to talk. Chris looks at the oversized clock on the wall. It seems to stop moving just to defy him. "Yeah?" Chris keeps it as noncommittal as he can without outright ignoring Darren. 

"Yeah, I went to a private school." Darren's face lights up and Chris resolutely does not think that he might be kind of cute underneath that tangle of hair. 

_Fuck._

* 

Sitting with Darren for lunch, Chris realizes, was like feeding a scrap to a hungry puppy. 

Darren is suddenly everywhere. He's weaving through people in the halls to walk by Chris to class. He's perched by Chris's favorite tree outside during lunch. He's sat next to the only empty desk in the third period English class that Chris hadn't even realized they shared. He's waving Chris over in Drama as soon as Chris walks into the room.

He opens his mouth at least twice a day to tell Darren to leave him alone, but somehow the words never come out. 

(Even if they did, chances are Darren wouldn't hear them because he'd be talking over Chris, anyway.)

Darren's not even that bad. Chris just isn't really in the market for new friends. 

Even if he were... Darren's just not the type of person Chris usually hangs out with. It's not that Darren isn't popular, because Chris certainly doesn't give a shit about things like status or popularity. It's just that Darren's - _weird_. He has this constant need to fill silence with some kind of noise. He genuinely pays attention in school and hangs around after classes to talk to his teachers like they're actual people and not just... teachers. He brings strange food for lunch and takes the mocking he gets as an invitation to explain what it is and offer the students some. He seems oblivious but he's not stupid. He seems happy without a reason to be. It's strange and not the natural order of things and Chris... he's just not sure if he's got room in his life for that kind of weirdness on top of his own. 

Also, he's a guy who isn't completely a troll and has shown Chris kindness, which by the law of the universe means he's probably straight and Chris isn't a masochist. 

*

"Do you have a crush on him or something?" Mel asks. 

They're in the empty journalism classroom, feasting on the borderline out of date cookie dough Chris dutifully supplies her with every day. He might only have one friend, but he treats her well. 

"No." Chris makes a disgusted face. "I do not have a crush on him." 

"Because you're always with him now." 

"He's always with _me_ ," Chris corrects her. 

"Hmm." She doesn't believe him. "He's weird." 

"Very weird," Chris agrees. Pause. And he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but. "He can sing pretty well, though." 

"You totally have a crush!" Mel crows. 

Fuck her. See how she likes going without her chocolate chip fix. Revenge will come in the form of oatmeal raisin. 

* 

Chris has a system when it comes to group projects, and for the past two years his teachers and fellow classmates have all respected this system. 

It's not because they like him. It's because they're all weak idiots who cowed down under his threats to go viral with a video tape of him being bullied and harassed on school grounds. He doesn't have a video but he did have a bloody nose and a slur sharpied onto his locker, and the principal understood that all publicity is certainly not good publicity - especially not for someone with school board aspirations. 

He's got carte blanche to work by himself and that's why it's really fucking annoying the first time a group project is announced and Darren turns to him with that happy puppy expression and says, "Buddy!" 

*

"I'll come over tonight," Chris says. 

"Oh, tonight doesn't work for me, man. Sorry." Darren is shoving things into his backpack. Chris isn't sure how he always manages to look like he's running late while also seeming completely relaxed. "Thursday, maybe- oh, shit, no. Trombone lesson." 

"You play the trombone?" Chris has a mental image of Darren dragging one around school like he does his other instruments. 

"Learning!" Darren answers. 

"Okay, what about this weekend?" Chris asks. 

"Got a thing Saturday night, but I think my afternoon is free. Here, give me your number." Darren hands his phone to Chris. 

Chris stares down at it. He's never actually put his number in someone else's phone before. "It's locked," he says. 

"Oh, sorry." Darren takes it back and unlocks it, then hands it to Chris. 

Chris is halfway through putting his information in when the phone buzzes with a text message. "Um, someone named Natalie-" 

So. Straight. 

"What'd she say?" Darren asks. 

"I asked Brian to the dance and he said yes, help me pick out a dress on Sunday?" So. Maybe not straight? "With, um, a heart eyes emoji and a dancing girl." 

(Chris hates himself for how much he cares.) 

Another text appears. "And she says she'll buy lunch," Chris reads. 

"Sweet." Darren does a little fist pump. "Okay, then Saturday afternoon is good. I think my mom wanted to have lunch, but you can come over after - like, between one and four, will that be enough time?" 

He halfway expects Darren to pull out a planner and literally schedule him in. 

What a weirdo.

*

So, it turns out, Darren's weirdness is apparently situational. 

And that in itself is - weird. 

Chris does show up at the address Darren texts him at one pm on the dot. He meets Darren's mother and is caught off guard by the hug she gives him and the plate of snacks she shows up with an hour into their project session. 

"I'm going out now," she says. "Door stays open!" 

Chris misses whatever Darren says in response because he's too busy mentally calculating whether that counts as a mark in the potentially not-straight column. Do "normal" non-same-sex-attracted boys get warned about keeping doors open? Chris's mind goes to a sexually deviant place first, but about ten seconds later he begins to doubt himself. 

Then Darren's mom is gone and Chris hits pause on his internal crisis. 

They get another hour of work done and then Darren's phone rings. He answers it and leaves Chris flipping through a copy of The Heart of Darkness. 

"Hey, man - oh, what? No, dude, we said four - you fuckwad. Hold on, I'll be down in a second." He hangs up and looks at Chris apologetically. "So, my friends showed up early. That cool?" 

In no realm of reality or fantasy is that actually cool with Chris, but he nods and forces his mouth into something he hopes is a smile. "Sure." 

It all goes downhill from there. 

*

Darren is weird. Chris will defend that to his last breath. Darren's _weird_. 

But apparently at his old school, that kind of weird meant good things. When Darren says he has friends showing up, what he really means is about a half a dozen people all clamoring for his attention or to tell him stories about things that happened at the old school and filling him on all the drama. 

Darren's room is hardly big enough to fit them all. Chris ends up sitting on the lone chair in the room while everyone else sprawls out across the floor in bed. 

He really wants to go home. He would, if there were any possible way of sneaking out, but the desk chair is the furthest point in the room from the door. He isn't even sure what he'd say, because the truth ("I have zero interest in remaining in a room full of people I neither know nor have any desire to know.") is socially unacceptable, he's learned. 

"This is Chris," Darren says, as everyone settles. 

Then something truly strange happens: they all act like they know him. 

Because apparently they all feel like they do. 

Because _apparently_ Darren talks about him. 

"Finally!" one guy says.

"We've been telling him to bring you around for ages," another one says. 

"You're the one that writes the articles, right?" a third one asks. 

"How do-" Chris stops talking when he realizes how red Darren is turning. He smiles, just a little. "Yeah." 

"I hate you all," Darren declares. 

Then he looks at Chris and realizes that Chris is smiling and he smiles back, also just a little. And it's the strangest thing, something Chris has never experienced before, how their eyes meet and for a few seconds neither of them are paying any attention to anyone else. 

Then someone burps and the moment is shattered, but Chris suddenly has a reason to stop planning his escape route. 

* 

An hour later, Chris is given his out. 

"We're gonna hang out and watch Men in Black," Darren says. "If you need to go that's cool, but, um, if you want to stay... I mean, I think it'd be... cool." 

It's unfair how much cuter Darren seems when he's stood barefoot in front of a staircase, nervously looking anywhere but at Chris. 

This situation may not be entirely familiar to him in practice but he's seen enough cheesy high school movies to understand, in a generic sense, that this might lead somewhere.

"I'll stay," Chris says. 

*

Darren has cool parents, it seems. The kind of cool parents that want to encourage their children to have active social lives but make smart decisions, and therefore have agreed to let Darren and his brother pack the house every Saturday night so they can have fun and hang out with free food as an incentive to not go out and get wasted instead. 

Darren also seems to live in a weird 90s after-school special universe where his parents can say something like that and Darren and his brother and all their friends actually respect it and spend their Saturday nights blasting music or watching movies on an indulgently large screen and eating pizza without breaking into the liquor cabinet or breaking, in general, anything. 

Darren's brother comes in just before the pizza, a trail of girls and boys after him. It's a party by any standards, just a very mellow one with Darren and Chuck holding court. 

Chris ends up squished between the arm at one end of the enormous sofa, and Darren. It is... not entirely unpleasant, but very nerve-wracking. As they eat Darren's constantly in motion, talking or laughing or gesturing with his hands, and Chris can feel the motion along every place they're pressed together - shoulder, hip, thigh. 

He mostly talks to Darren. The other people don't exclude him, though, in a strange but pleasant way. He even adds in a couple of comments when he feels like his contribution is deserving enough. He makes one guy laugh so hard he almost snorts soda out of his nose, leaving Chris feeling proud of his own wit and Darren grinning hugely at him. 

*

Everyone quiets down and the lights go dim when they start the movie. People are still talking, just in smaller pockets and hushed voices. 

Darren can't seem to shut up even during the film, but Chris doesn't mind because it means every few minutes Darren is leaning into his space whispering things like, "That one's totally my favorite," and "I'd adopt one of those as a pet," and "I used to have this action figure when I was a kid. It's probably in my room somewhere still." 

Chris spends the whole movie fighting a smile, because Darren isn't giving the same conversational treatment to the girl on the other side of him... and he definitely doesn't take _her_ hand half halfway through. 

* 

By the end of the movie, both of them have sweaty palms. Darren lets go of his fingers just after the credits roll. 

Chris feels a stab of disappointment, though since Darren's the one getting up to retrieve the disc it only makes sense. 

"I should probably go home," he says reluctantly. He lives twenty minutes away and despite almost never being out even close to his curfew, he doesn't feel like devoting any energy towards finding out what his parents would do if he broke it completely.

(And maybe he just wants to get away to process the fact that he held hands with a boy for the first time tonight, but that's not an answer he'd articulate even if it was the most honest one.)

"Okay," Darren says, disappointed but not trying to convince Chris to stay. He turns around and says, "Hey, Chris has to head out, I'm gonna walk him out!" 

Someone wolf whistles. 

Someone else says, "See you next weekend, right, Chris?" with a very pointed wink. 

Chris turns beet red. So does Darren, who actually hisses, "Jeez, shut up!" before all but pushing Chris toward the door. 

Outside, they stare at each other a little. "Um." Chris says. "So, bye?" 

Darren grabs his hand. Chris stands, immobilized by the touch. 

"I'll see you next weekend?" Darren asks. 

"You'll see me before that," Chris says. 

"Yeah, but. My friends liked you a lot..." 

"They're nice." 

"So, you know, if you want to come back next weekend..." Darren clears his throat. "Or we could just do something on our own." 

Half of Chris is having an out of body experience, groaning and rolling his eyes at the other half, which is outwardly silent and inwardly running around with both hands thrown in the air screaming. 

"Sure," Chris says. "We can do something." 

* 

He does see Darren at school. They see each other every single day, in third period English and at lunch and in Drama. 

There is no hand holding, and there's not really much that counts as flirting because Darren's default setting is pretty similar to most people's flirtation and Chris just... doesn't flirt. 

But there is a lot of conversation, of losing track of time and passing notes in class and making each other laugh. There is a lot of eye contact and smiles they don't mean to share until it's too late to stop them, and that one time Darren puts his hand on the small of Chris's back. 

Chris even brings Darren some cookie dough. 

*

The date doesn't really happen, because Chris's parents don't want him out past eight on weeknights and on Friday night, Darren's got dinner with his grandparents. 

On Saturday night, Chris sits in the same spot at the end of Darren's sofa. 

Darren sits beside him again. This time Chris notices that people avoid it on purpose, choosing uncomfortable floor spots even when Darren's occupied in the kitchen. Darren apparently has half a dozen wingmen. It's admirable, really. 

They hold hands again, and Darren props his chin on Chris's shoulder to whisper to him and sometimes Chris turns like he needs to in order to hear Darren better. Really, he just wants to see how close they can get. 

Their noses brush once. 

After the movie, he sticks around longer. Darren gets distracted by some of his old classmates about the tragedy of a misrun club on his old campus. Chris barely even notices because he's discovered one of Darren's best friends is almost on his level as a Harry Potter fan and half an hour flies by discussing the merits of Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff and how they're really the only houses that matter.

When Darren walks back up, he puts his arms around Chris from behind. Chris's breath catches and he resolutely does not think that the word _swoon_ comes dangerously close to describing his behavior. 

The Harry Potter comrade in arms wanders off. 

"Your friends are cool," Chris says. He cautiously reaches down and puts his hand over Darren's. Maybe if he does this, Darren won't move. Like, ever. 

"You're cool." Darren whispers. 

There's no way he misses how it makes Chris shiver. 

*

He thinks maybe Darren's going to kiss him, but when Chris says he's leaving a few other people say they'll leave too. Deprived of a moment alone, Chris swallows down a hollow feeling and waves goodbye when he catches Darren staring through the window of his car. 

* 

It's not like Darren becomes a new person around this group of his old friends. He is exactly the same from one setting to the next. It's just in how his behavior is received that changes. 

It makes Chris sad, but when he tries in a clumsy way to ask Darren about it Darren just shrugs. "It doesn't bother me," he says. "It blows that my parents decided to move across town when I only have two years of school left, but it could have been worse. Like, a different state, or something. I still get to see all my friends, just not during the day." 

"How does it not bother you?" Chris asks. 

"Well." Darren knocks his knee against Chris's. "I've got you." 

"Oh." Chris looks away to smile. 

* 

“You loooooove him,” Mel sings. 

She’s drawing on the whiteboard while she does it - Chris and Darren’s names surrounded by hearts. “You’re over-invested,” Chris tells her. 

“I’m living vicariously.” 

“I thought you didn’t even like him.” 

“Maybe I changed my mind,” she says. “His brother’s cute.” 

“He will not hook you up with his brother.” 

“Did I ask?” 

“Weren’t you going to?” 

“You don’t know me, Colfer.” 

“And you don’t know me. Or my l-love life.” Chris takes the eraser and clears a wide swath through the middle of her artistic masterpiece. 

He waits to see if she’ll call him on the stutter. She doesn’t, but apparently his word choice alone was distracting enough. 

“But now I know you _have_ a love life,” she points out. “Because you just said it.” 

“I hate you,” Chris says. “We haven’t even like. Done anything.” 

She draws a smiley face onto the board. “I think it’s cool that you found someone you like,” she says. “And it doesn’t matter what I think of him. It just matters what you think.” 

It’s disarmingly sensible advice. “Still not setting you up with his brother.” 

*

Darren invites him over two hours early on Saturday. 

Darren’s brother answers the door. Chuck is pretty cool. He’s popular by any standards, a little more restrained than Darren but similar once he warms up. 

“Darren’s in the shower,” he says. “But you can hang.” 

Chris wants to argue that he’s not sure if he can. He doesn’t even really know what constitutes as _hanging_. 

But it turns out that hanging just means sitting on the couch watching music videos, which… isn’t one of Chris’s common pastimes but he can deal. 

“You’re cool,” Chuck says, out of nowhere. “For hanging out with Darren. I think the new school was starting to bum him out.” 

Chris wasn’t aware that Darren even had a setting that wasn’t full on beaming sunshine out of his pores. 

“Um, good. I mean. Thanks.” Chris plucks at a stray thread on the hem of his shirt. “Not good, about Darren. That… sucks.” 

Chuck’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to laugh at Chris. “Yeah. Just, be cool to him.” 

_Oh_. “Is this-” Chris starts. “Are you-” 

“I’m just looking out for him.” Chuck does laugh this time. “He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s my kid brother.” 

“I will,” Chris says. “Be cool to him. I will.” 

Chuck grins. “I figured you would.” 

*

Darren pops his head into the room a few minutes later. His shirt is still damp in patches, and his hair looks hastily patted dry. “Chris! Shit, I’m sorry, I lost track of time.” 

“It’s fine,” Chris says. “Chuck and I were just… hanging.” 

Chuck lifts a hand and waves it without taking his eyes off his phone. 

"Come to my room,” Darren says.” I've got something I want you to listen to."

He grabs Chris’s hand and, no, the hand holding thing isn't old yet. Chris wants to protest when Darren lets go as soon as they're in his room. 

Darren closes his door this time. That should have been a clue. 

"What is it?" Chris asks, looking around. Darren has his record player open, a stack of vinyls beside it. They spent an hour after school yesterday texting about their favorite Broadway soundtracks. Maybe he's got- 

Darren kisses him. 

Chris doesn't respond at first, then it goes from just Darren's lips against his to Darren's lips moving against his and some kind of instinct kicks in. He has no idea if he's good or bad, and kissing in general is kind of weird, but on that same instinctual level he suddenly gets the appeal. 

"Sorry," Darren says. "I just... wanted to do that. A lot." 

"Yeah," Chris says breathlessly. "It's fine." 

Which is about the lamest thing he could possibly say, but he's smiling and so is Darren. 

Then Darren reaches past him and opens the door. "Have to," he says apologetically. "My mom would kill me." 

"Have you been caught with boys in your room before?" Chris asks. 

Darren tilts his head and shrugs a little. 

Huh. Okay. Well, he can live with that. At least one of them knows what they're doing. 

"None as cute as you, though." Darren winks. 

Chris rolls his eyes and shoves Darren away. "Weirdo." 

And what is his fucking _life_ , Chris thinks. He’ll need about a year to actually process this but right now he doesn’t really care because looking at Darren so close up makes his stomach feel like he’s on the third loop of a roller coaster. He’s grateful for rainy days and group projects and nosy friends pushing him in just the right way and even though he’ll probably never say it, he’s so, so grateful for the way Darren’s staring at him 

"Yeah," Darren says, catching Chris's hands and drawing him close. "But you like it." 

He kisses Chris again, very lightly on the lips. 

"Yeah," Chris says. "I guess I kinda do."

**Author's Note:**

> [Read and reblog on tumblr!](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/139452958510/start-of-something-new-chrisdarren)


End file.
